Vispo print: Meltdown / Heat, abstraction, visual poetry and imperfect lines

Meltdown, RTomens, 2026

We're having a heatwave in the UK - cue the collapse of schools, rail networks...and the current political leadership - ha-ha! Combine that with England playing in the World Cup tonight and it's a safe bet that there will be much booze consumed and probably a few very sick people later.

I had no intention of creating anything to do with heat when I made Meltdown this morning but as I played around with the components they took on the impression of flames. Only the impression, mind. In abstract works people naturally want to find recognisable elements. Visual poetry can be purely abstract. Much of mine tends towards it. The use of legible words contrasted with the totally illegible is a tension I like to create. In some cases, even making the letters illegible to the point where they become solely marks. In that form, is it really 'poetry' of any kind? Like art, if the maker wishes to say it is, I suppose. 

Visual poetry has always sat on the margins of art and literature. Less so in its earlier forms when wordplay was prominent, but that form evolved into a myriad of experiments with what a typewriter could produce, from dense clusters of letters to mark-making. I have my preferences when it comes to being a viewer. You can guess what they are. 

Meltdown comes from this piece: 

Once the main shape was finished I felt it needed something else, but had no ideas. LJ suggested the red lines. I wasn't sure. She offered to draw them so I let her. I should have warned her that the pens meet some resistance from a page that's already been printed on but instead I watched as she did her best. I could have strengthened to lines afterwards but decided that their frailty, in places, was a pleasing sign of the imperfect human hand sometimes. In the age of AI, imperfection is a precious thing. TTFN!